When I was a little girl my mum taught me how to tell the time by blowing seeds off of a dandelion globe that has gone to seed. Of course it doesn’t really tell the time, but it was easy to be drawn into the folklore as a young child. I would search across our garden for the globes so I could see if they consistently predicted the right time again and again. Sometimes they did!
Last spring I introduced my own children to this activity and we spent a morning a Shelley Park, Cronulla and along the walkway collecting dandelion globes and checking the time (which was often spot on!). Ever since, whenever they have spotted a dandelion globe they have pounced on it and started blowing without any prompting.
I’ve always wondered if my mum made this activity up herself so I did a little research and discovered that telling time with a dandelion globe is something a lot of people know about. You probably do, it is quite an old English tradition. I also discovered further legends. My favourite said that blowing the seeds off the Dandelion Globe carries your thoughts and dreams to your loved one. Lovely, right? Blow all the seeds off in one go and you are loved passionately by someone. I’m not sharing that one with my children just yet, they don’t need a dandelion to tell them that!